The world this week

Politics this week
Business this week
KAL’s cartoon
Leaders

Global growth
Fault lines in the world economy
The global economic recovery is fast, furious—and fragile

America’s longest war
Abandoning Afghanistan
The consequences of the 20-year intervention, already horrific, are likely to get worse

Chinese capitalism
Hit and run
The attack on Didi shows how high a price the Communist Party puts on control

The mayor of New York
New cop on the beat
Eric Adams brings sanity to the effort to turn New York City around

Penal reform
Pointlessly punitive
Why life sentences without parole are almost always a bad idea

Letters

Letters to the editor
On literacy, military reserves, working days, Kenneth Kaunda, historical fiction
Briefing

Inflation
Boom and doom?
Prices are rising much faster than expected across the world’s economies. Will it last?

Asia


Afghanistan after America
Peace out
Human rights in India
Father, who art in prison
Banyan
The Myanmar trap
South Korea’s work culture
(; —,_—)
Japanese politics
Tokyo drifts
The South China Sea
Hark! The herald angels say “buzz off”
China


Bitcoin mining
There was gold in them thar hills
Party history
De-Maoification
Chaguan
For-profit patriotism
United States


Patriotism and polarisation
The history wars
New York’s next mayor
Adams’s Apple
Travel returns
Baby, you can’t drive my car
Green-on-green battles
Dammed if you do
Religious affiliations
None of the above
Conspiracies
Wrestling with common sense
Lexington
What a way to spend $2trn
The Americas


Haiti
A presidential assassination
Urban malaise
Quitting the city
Colombia
Blocking the schoolhouse door
Bello
The clash in Peru
Middle East & Africa


The Iran nuclear deal
Enriching talks
Lebanon
Begging for help
Cannabis in Morocco
High in the mountains
Eswatini
The king’s reply
South Sudan
Unhappy birthday
Europe


Covid-19 in Russia
How not to do it
Turkey
Scandals galore
Folk festivals
After the plague, the revelry
The Catholic church
Vatican rocked
Charlemagne
The surreptitious socialist
Britain


Hospital queues
The mystery at the heart of the NHS
Lockdown
The strange myth of liberal England
A fintech share listing
Direct transfer
Morrisons
Price war
Local news
Night crawlers
Romance
Tall, handsome—and darker
Carmaking
Pedal to the metal
Bagehot
Band of brothers
International


Life sentences
Retrieving the key
Business


Sino-American tech tensions
In the grip of anxiety
Alcohol-free beer
Buzzkill
Conversational commerce
Chat-up lines
Amazon
The Jassy age
The airline business
Dark skies and silver linings
Schumpeter
Keeping it in the ground
Finance & economics


Quantitative easing
The quest to quit QE
Buttonwood
Classic convertible
Oil markets
Division over the spoils
Company buyouts
Frenemies
Investment in Africa
Links in the chain
Free exchange
Stabilité, libéralité, égalité
Science & technology


Automating programming
The software software engineers
Copper gushers
Brine mines
The origin of songbirds
The sweet taste of success
Symbiosis
Ants, acacias and shameless bribery
How tea gets its flavour
Milk, sugar and microbes, please
Books & arts


Social skills
The comfort of strangers
A private-equity scandal
All that glitters
Mediterranean history
Under the volcano
Contemporary art
To the lighthouse
Economic & financial indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets
Graphic detail


Elections and the pandemic
Stamped out
Obituary


Donald Rumsfeld
Stuff happens